The Taking

We stopped at the vending machines on our way to room 110 and used the quarters the girl had traded me for my wet bills to pick up a couple cans of Coke, a pack of chocolate chip cookies, some Doritos, and a thing of beef jerky—all the major food groups.

The room itself was stale smelling and brightly colored. Orange, mostly. Orange bedspread and orange shag carpet and a bright-orange lampshade that was shaped like a pear. Supersweet.

Mostly, though, it had heavy orange curtains that were perfect for privacy, and a queen-size bed.

But that was the thing—I’d asked for two beds, and room 110 had only one.

I eyed Tyler, and he eyed me back.

“I like the way you think,” he finally threw out there, wiggling his eyebrows comically.

“Uh, yeah. I didn’t do this.” I wandered to the bed and sat on the end of it. Awesome—it squeaked too. “But we have to keep it. I don’t want to draw any more attention than we already have.”

“Suits me just fine,” he said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. “I just hope you can keep your hands off me.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll manage.” Another shudder gripped me. It had been like this since we’d gotten out of the water onto solid land. I couldn’t shake the bone-deep cold.

Tyler eased away from the wall and dropped down next to me on the bed. He dragged me against him and tried to rub the chill from my arms. He regarded me seriously. “You should jump in the shower. It’ll warm you up.”

“You’d say anything to get me out of my clothes, wouldn’t you?” I accused.

“Well . . .” He grinned. “You’re not wrong. But in this case, I think saving you from hypothermia comes before seeing you naked.” He paused a second and then added with a wry look, “Although seeing you naked runs a close second.”

He winked at me as he got up from the bed and then sauntered into the bathroom to start the water, as if he hadn’t just set my entire body on fire. It was hard to imagine I even needed that shower now.

If I ever had a daughter, I swore I would warn her about boys like Tyler—the kind who could turn you into a puddle of mush with a wink and a grin. And an innocent-looking dimple.

When he came out, steam was already wafting from the bathroom behind him. “There are towels and those little minibottles of shampoo. I’ll be back in a few. I’m gonna see if I can scrounge up something dry for you to put on.” He took the key and a couple of the bills we’d set out to dry, and left me to get naked.

I looked ridiculous in my men’s triple-XL Asplund Motor Inn souvenir T-shirt, even though I was grateful that the owners thought enough of their crappy motel to have souvenir T-shirts made in the first place. The giant shirt fit more like a dress on me, falling to my knees, which was a good thing since they didn’t sell souvenir boxer shorts or anything else for the lower half, and I’d been forced to put on my wet underwear beneath it. My jeans were hanging over the heater, which seemed to blow only lukewarm air, alongside Tyler’s clothes.

This was one of those moments in life when I wished I were more disciplined. When I had to bite my lips against the images the sounds of his shower were producing in my head. Images of him naked. But instead of mountains of self-control, that was all I could think about.

Tyler undressing.

Tyler getting wet beneath the stream of steaming hot water.

Tyler lathering up.

I was worse than a fifteen-year-old boy whose hormones had kicked into overdrive.

To distract myself from thoughts of Naked Tyler, I started sifting through the things we’d salvaged from my dad’s place, even though there wasn’t much left to salvage after the river fiasco.

The fanny pack had saved things from drifting away, but that was about all it had done.

I took the phone apart, removing the battery in hopes that once all the parts had dried, it might power up again, at least enough so I could get Simon’s number off it.

“Dream big,” my dad always told me.

Most of the things, though—the photos, the missing-person flier, the map—were a soggy mess. I did my best with them, but I finally gave up, tossing everything but the map into the wastebasket. The map I’d painstakingly spread over a table until it looked a little less like something Logan had chewed up and spit out. I could still make out some of the diagrams my dad had drawn on it, but most were smudged beyond recognition.

I had no idea whether the USB stick had survived being plunged into the river; but like the phone, I hoped it would dry out and might eventually be useful, so I set it aside with the CD.

The last thing I pulled from the fanny pack was the last thing I’d expected to find in there: the giant button of my fourth-grade picture that my dad used to wear. I hadn’t even seen it in the mess at my dad’s place.

“I couldn’t resist,” Tyler said from behind me.

I turned and saw him scrutinizing me from the bathroom, a towel wrapped strategically around his waist, blocking all the interesting stuff. Well, most of the interesting stuff.

My eyes traveled over the defined planes of his chest and down his muscled arms. His skin was damp still, and my fingers itched to dry him off the rest of the way. Any red-blooded American girl would’ve had the exact same thought.

“Um, yeah,” I said, averting my gaze back to the plastic-coated button in my hand. “It’s me, when I was little.” I smiled coyly, feeling silly that a trinket from my past had made me so happy.